Genius

Ages are All Equal.
But Genius is Always Above The Age.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake (1863). Notes on Reynolds' Discourses (written c. 1798-1808; aka Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds).

Execution is the Chariot of Genius.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake (1863). Notes on Reynolds' Discourses (written c. 1798-1808; aka Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds).

Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvements are roads of genius.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

It is not the great, scholarly mind that does the great work, it is the man who knows a few things and loves them. A genius is just another way of defining a great enthusiast.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, in Nebraska State Journal (5 November 1893). One Way of Putting It

It is power of thought and utterance which immortalizes the products of genius.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in the Christian Examiner (1827-28). Remarks on The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte, Part II

Genius has no sex, -- I defy anyone to distinguish between two canvasses, one of which shall be the production of a woman, and the other of a man.
~ William Merritt Chase

When human power becomes so great and original that we can account for it only as a kind of divine imagination, we call it genius.
~ William Crashaw

[O]riginal Poetic Genius will in general be displayed in its utmost vigour in the early and uncultivated periods of Society, which are peculiarly favorable to it; and that it will seldom appear in a very high degree in cultivated life.
~ William Duff, Essay on Original Genius (1767).

To explore unbeaten tracks, and make new discoveries in the regions of Science; to invent the designs, and perfect the productions of Art, is the province of Genius alone.
~ William Duff, Essay on Original Genius (1767).

Science can get along with talent, but art requires genius.
~ William James "Will" Durant

Geniuses used to be rare. Today, thanks to popular interpretation of test scores, every elementary or secondary school has its quota.
~ John William Gardner, Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (1961).

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
~ William Hazlitt, Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners (1821-1822). On Application to Study

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it, because they excel.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have produced immortal works, have done so without knowing how or why. The greatest power operates unseen . . .
~ William Hazlitt, Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners (1821-1822). Whether Genius is Conscious of its own Power

The path of genius is free, and its own.
~ William Hazlitt, in Selected Essays of William Hazlitt (1930). Characteristics (written in 1823)

I know of no such thing as genius, genius is nothing but labour and diligence.
~ William Hogarth

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890).

[G]enius is nothing but a power of sustained attention.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). Attention

Genius is the art of nonhabitual thought.
~ William James

Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
~ William James

Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention. . . . But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.
~ William James, A Text-Book of Psychology (1892).

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890).

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will in fifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949).

A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things besides: gratitude and purity.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Genius depends on dry air, on clear skies -- that is, on rapid metabolism, on the possibility of drawing again and again on great, even tremendous quantities of strength.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1888).

Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.
~ W. (William) Winwood Reade , The Martyrdom of Man (1872). Materials of Human History

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
~ Will Rogers

Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, How to Become a Man of Genius (Column for the Hearst Newspapers; 28 December 1932).

Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.
~ William Saroyan, Three Times Three (1936).

Oddities and singularities of behavior may attend genius; when they do, they are its misfortunes and blemishes. The man of true genius will be ashamed of them; at least he will never affect to distinguish himself by whimsical peculiarities.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet

Genius is never understood in its own time.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark -- that is critical genius.
~ Billy Wilder

Real genius of moral insight is a motor which will start any engine.
~ Edmund Wilson